


The Fifth Sense

by helena3190



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Compliant, Eventual Romance, F/M, Friendship/Love, Manga Spoilers, Slow Burn, rivamika, rivamika a year to remember, rivamika first impressions, rivamika weekend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 05:48:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28826235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helena3190/pseuds/helena3190
Summary: A collection of first impressions between Mikasa and Levi based on the five senses. Hear, see, touch, smell, andtaste.Written for rivamika events' prompt "First Impressions" in A Year to Remember. Chapters 2-5 have manga spoilers!
Relationships: Mikasa Ackerman/Levi
Comments: 52
Kudos: 256





	1. I. Hear

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, everyone! (: I have never participated in a prompt challenge but really wanted to give it a try. Thank you to the rivamika organizers and lovely other artists, writers, and creatives who participate! Find them [on tumblr](https://rivamikaevents.tumblr.com/).

**The Fifth Sense**

_By Helena_

I. Hear 

II. See

III. Touch

IV. Smell

V. Taste

* * *

**I. Hear**

These are the days he doesn’t know that he’ll remember them by the most. Moments so unremarkable, Levi is not even certain why they were encoded to last for the long-term.

The comfortable lull during the “in-between”, after the harrowing grief of an expedition but before the swelling anticipation of the next one. Lazily lounging on late Friday afternoons when Erwin is in an overtly good mood and gestures toward the port wine. Plans ruined by severe weather, necessary readjustments in travel plans gifting them unexpected time together.

Tonight’s gathering can be blamed on the blinding white of the snowstorm and human propensity to gather around one fire together instead of apart at individual hearths.

Levi shows up late, the last of the Scouts to crowd into their Commander's office. Erwin remains at his desk, a passive if not pleased smile hidden beneath hard features. Hange, Moblit and Miche sit around a messy table covered in gambling chips and playing cards. Günther and Nanaba take the only sofa, focused on each other in a heated debate, pretending to be unaware of their knees knocking together.

“Captain Levi,” Hange greets with an earnest wave. “We just refilled the kettle. The water should still be hot.”

He nods in thanks. Since Erwin recruited him, Hange has made an intentional effort to curb their curiosity about his impressive skills— or “unexplainable aptitude”, as they describe it— and offer friendship instead. Levi moves toward the tea cart on the other side of the fireplace, observing their Commander from his peripheral. 

The tension that remains in Erwin’s militant frame is indiscernible, but Levi knows better. He has something on his mind and isn’t settling into the buzz of liquor or laughter of card games like the rest of them.

“We’ve got mail from Shadis,” Erwin remarks, to no one and to all of them.

It’s an offhand comment, but Levi hears it. The tilt in the otherwise even tone that is leaning toward concern or curiosity.

“Oh,” Hange exclaims, focused on shuffling the card deck. “Haven’t seen him in quite some time.”

Levi is busy hunting for the tea strainer, unreasonably frustrated that it is not where he left it considering this is not his office let alone his tea cart. He sees Hange turn in their chair.

“That usual for him? To write to you?” Hange adds in afterthought.

“No.” Erwin looks at the envelope for a beat, and then begins to open it. “In fact, it’s unusual.”

Levi spares a cursory glance around the room to see who has tea and is thus more likely to be the culprit who _misplaced_ the strainer. He narrows in on a discarded teacup on the small table beside Günther.

“Read it aloud then, eh?” Miche prompts, cutting a cigar while Hange starts to deal.

Levi takes a step toward the idiotic lovebirds on the sofa, but the contents of the letter soon stop him from moving further.

“Erwin, in light of what humanity is up against, I thought it necessary to notify you. We’ve a cadet with inexplicable strength— an unexplainable skill set, really. Mikasa Ackerman. She has a complete understanding of every subject; it’s no overstatement to say she’s a genius. Needless to say, we have never seen the likes of her talent.

“Though she’s sure to rank in the top and could choose placement with the Military Police, there are personal conditions inclining her toward the Scouts. If I were you, I’d have a vested interest in ensuring the finality of her decision. I’m certain she could stand in for one-hundred soldiers outside the Walls.”

Levi loses his resolve on the necessity of a strainer. He turns back to the kettle and starts to prepare his preferred blend of black tea with spearmint.

It’s Moblit who hums first. “My, aren’t we fortunate Shadis is partial to our branch.”

“Didn’t you say he prematurely retired and forfeited his post?” Levi interjects. “I wouldn’t call that partial.”

It was a mistake to speak. Erwin has turned his calculative gaze onto him.

“What do you think, Levi?”

Levi shrugs, no longer using the tea as an excuse for distraction. He meets Erwin’s question without blinking.

“I don’t know the man like you do, but I don’t trust anyone who waves something shiny and expensive in my face and says ‘Here, you should have it.’”

“Not about Keith’s intents. About the cadet.”

Levi sighs. The others in the room might attribute it to boredom, but Erwin knows him better and waits patiently for the answer.

“I’ve told you I’m not the only one," he says, something tightening in his chest. 

One of _what_ he isn’t sure. There’s both a strange comfort and worrisome affliction to consider that beyond Kenny, he might not be the only one with this unexpected talent— or curse. 

“You think she could be like you?” Hange nearly shouts. In their excitement, they drop their cards facing upward and reveal what might have been a winning hand. 

Levi is not used to the excessive attention that comes with being known, let alone famed, in the military. It’s uncomfortable to have the entire room staring at him— him and his _unexplainable_ aptitude— but he takes his time to think it over. It's impossible to know from a first impression written over a letter, but what else could it be?

“Could be,” Levi offers finally. Wanting to change the subject, he asks, “You going to do what Shadis suggests?”

“I sure hope so,” Nanaba says, ever the pragmatist.

Erwin continues to stare at Levi. He places the letter down neatly before him. “It’s something I’d consider. Are you suggesting that I don’t?”

Levi doesn’t hesitate to meet Erwin’s challenging gaze head on. “You already got your greedy hands on one super soldier. Maybe let the next one make her own decision.”

Miche and Moblit laugh at his boldness. Hange just stares with widened eyes, no doubt eager to get their own hands on someone with _unexplainable aptitude_ who might be more willing to be tested and prodded. 

“That would be a risk,” Erwin acknowledges. “She could easily end up enlisting with the Military Police.”

Günther interjects this time. “If those worthless cowards hiding in the interior are who she plans to join, do we even want her with us anyway?”

Levi agrees, but he doesn’t say it. He finishes steeping his tea, methodically removing the tea ball and carefully cleaning up what little mess he made. By the time he turns back toward the Commander, he sees that Erwin has forfeited. There’s a subtle shift of his shoulders as he leans further back into the cushion of his chair.

“Alright. Then we leave it up to chance.”

 _Not chance_ , Levi thinks to himself. _To choice._

But he only lifts an indolent brow to the Commander, approaching him at his desk and leaning against the side of it. “You do enjoy a good gamble.”

Erwin’s hum is not in favor for or against this observation. He picks up the letter, seemingly observing it for one last time. Levi heard the words, but he can’t help but glance at the inked statements. He sees the cadet's name written in the instructor’s sloppy and slanted letters.

“Mikasa Ackerman.” Erwin folds the letter back into the envelope and tosses it into the bin behind his desk. Though he could be speaking to anyone in the room, Levi knows the words are meant for him. “At the very least, don’t forget her name.”

Levi looks at the discarded letter in the trash.

He knows that he won’t.

.

.


	2. II. See

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a reminder, part 2-5 skip ahead so major **manga spoilers**. (:

**II. See**

The first time he sees it, the mark looks like an ink stain against an otherwise perfect stretch of porcelain. His first impression of the strange tattoo is intertwined with the revelation of unblemished skin: both are unfamiliar.

Levi knows her skin and it isn’t perfect. Calloused and marked by welts. Scarred and littered with bruises. That Mikasa has managed to keep a portion of it hidden and protected is nearly as strange as the circular mark itself.

His mind wanders in consideration of the other places he hasn’t seen. What other parts of her she’s kept sanctified.

After returning to their base and checking in with Hange, he was updated with the relevant information shared by the ambassador of Hizuru. It’s still left him unprepared for why Mikasa is sitting outside of his bedroom door, apparently waiting for him.

She has her knees pulled to her chest and both arms looped around them. The top of her tattooed hand rests over the unmarked one. When Levi finally looks up from the mark and newly exposed skin, he finds her watchful gray eyes are steadily fixed onto him.

There’s no exchange of greetings. The customary time to share them has already passed.

He should ask why she’s here or what she wants, but Levi isn’t sure he’s prepared to hear the answer.

“Hange told me,” he says instead.

Mikasa doesn’t look down at the mark. “Then we’re all properly informed now.”

Her words are almost casual, but he hears the caustic edge. She can run on fractured ribs without flinching from pain, but the other sort of injuries...— she never seems able to fully conceal it when she’s hurt.

Levi thinks about telling her to move or simply shoving past her. Even though she’s seated and he’s standing, she’s positioned herself to have the power in their current arrangement. By leaning against his door instead of the wall next to it, he’s forced to engage with her. Levi has no doubt she did it on purpose.

It sparks a fair amount of indignation, but it also gives him an excuse to resign to it– whatever _it_ is. After a few sleepless nights and hard days of travelling, he finds it easier to surrender to an excuse.

Mikasa must see the choice as it’s decided on his face. He’s not going to shove her out. He’ll consider letting her in.

She blinks. For the first time, Levi notices there’s a glossy sheen over her lavender-dusted irises. Whatever watery nature of possible tears exists, they are held back by her lashes.

When she speaks, there’s not a single hint to suggest they could fall. “What I know about my father, I found out because of Kenny Ackerman.”

He’s not sure what he expected, but this isn’t it. Before he can think of some sort of deflection, she continues.

“And now what I know about my mother, it’s because of a diplomat from a place I had no idea even existed.”

Levi just watches her as he tries to regain his foothold in the conversation. If she wanted a thoughtful response, she would have sought after Armin. If she wanted comfort, then Sasha. He’s not even sure what it is that Eren does for her.

But the question right now is what does she think she’ll get from him?

Mikasa closes her marked hand into a fist atop her knee. Her sigh is gravelly. If he had to name it, he would call it distraught.

When she looks to him, he knows he is right. “I’m tired of learning about who I am from strangers.”

 _Shit_.

Levi wants to turn away, feign distraction at some distant rumbling of footfall down the hall, but he can’t do it. That would only confirm any of her suspicions, or at least prove his unwillingness to discuss them. He feels the muscles alongside his jaw tighten.

She continues to stare back at him, unblinking and focused. Without the relief from fluttering lids, the tear that she prevented earlier does come to formation. It slips from the corner of her left eyelid, but she doesn’t acknowledge it. Levi thinks it would be inaccurate to call it crying.

He exhales a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. The sound of it is foreign even to his own ears— it’s the sound of uncertainty. His gaze flickers down the hall, even though there are no longer any distractions sounding off in that direction.

So-called Humanity’s Strongest. He can’t even engage in a conversation about family. Just the thought of it turns his stomach into lead.

His words are hard. There’s not a shred of familial affection attached to them. “Kenny Ackerman was my mother’s brother. I met him for the first time after she died, but he didn’t tell me then, or in the years I spent with him after. Not until he gave me the serum when he was dying.”

The silence that ensues is brief. He has a disturbing feeling it’s her attempt to offer him time to reorient himself, but that’s outside of both of their control.

When she speaks, it’s not much softer than he had been. “Then you’re an Ackerman, too.”

It’s not a surprise to her. She already guessed— already knew. That doesn’t really surprise him either, but the years that passed without her asking lulled him into a place of forgetting. He had dropped his guard on the subject without meaning to.

Levi doesn’t answer aloud, but he turns back down to face her. It provides the same level of understanding, if not more. Her tightened fist loosens, lithe fingers spreading out almost nervously before latching onto her other wrist.

He wonders why she doesn’t ask him the reason he withheld this from her. There’s a slight discomfort in recognizing it’s probably because she doesn’t find it necessary to ask, not if she already felt confident in knowing him and his reasons. The problem with that is even he isn’t entirely certain.

“Think we’re related?” Mikasa asks abruptly, brazenly. Like she needed to force courage into it. 

That she chooses to ask _that_ first does surprise him, but he’s had enough time to recover, and his features are settled into a fixed posture of neutrality. 

“I looked into it.” Then, after a pause that feels important in ways he’s not willing to dwell on, least of all while she’s watching him. “No. We’re not. At least not by extended family for the last few generations.” 

Mikasa looks down and studies the tattoo on her wrist. It probably looks like he is too, but he’s not. He’s studying the newly exposed patch of skin— an ivory cream color that’s two shades lighter than the rest of her hand. Levi tries not to think about the other parts of her that haven’t seen enough daylight to have a tan either.

He’s not sure when it happened. The stone-cold brat with the fiery temper and fierce attitude has not changed, but evolved. The same person, yet harboring a maturity that casts longer shadows and tells of darker depths. She’s cut her hair to be pragmatic and short, and he can’t remember the last time she wore a skirt instead of soldier’s garb, but there’s nothing _girlish_ about her anymore.

Levi is about to tell her to leave. It was a mistake to entertain her the first time.

At the same time, Mikasa unbuckles her wrist and places both hands atop her knees. He’s not sure if it’s to push herself up or down.

“Tell me what you know,” she says.

Levi shakes his head once. “There’s not much else to know.”

“You obviously know more than I do. You just admitted you’ve read about others. You’ve had more time to think about it all. So, tell me what you know.”

It’s a futile attempt to dissuade a Mikasa who is determined, but he tries. Cold and sharp, Levi bites out. “Why?”

A wave of unidentifiable emotions flits over her features, the suddenness of a summer’s storm in her gray eyes. Then it’s gone. What’s left behind is a startlingly open expression; her lips nearly parted in contemplation, features relaxed with a rare but genuine display of emotion. This emotion is not one he will allow himself to name.

“Because you’re not a stranger,” she says, as honest as he’s ever heard her.

Those who don’t know Mikasa fear her for her coldness. The steeled nature of her hardened and ruthless disposition. Levi knows better. He has always been more wary of her warmth.

“ _Tch_.”

It’s the familiar sound of his annoyance, but it’s self-directed; the sound of resignation. Lavender sparks in her stormy irises as she senses his willingness.

Levi crosses the steps that he previously kept purposefully between them. The fact that he wants to touch her is the reason he doesn’t. Instead of offering her a hand to help her up, he pushes past her and reaches for the knob of his door. If she wanted a gentleman, she would have gone to Jean. 

“Come on,” he says, barking it out like an order. “I need to take a shit. You can make the tea.” 

When Mikasa gracefully launches herself upward, he ignores the faint turn of her lips suggesting at a secretive smile. He’s already ignoring enough secretive wants for the both of them.

.

.


	3. III. Touch

**III. Touch**

Her freefall is planned. She knows how to catch herself.

Mikasa calculates the path of least resistance from her height on a rooftop and on toward the evacuation blimp, whipping through the Liberio streets on ODM gear expertly tweaked for this spontaneous assignment.

There’s mayhem beneath her, stampeding civilians and frantic shouts of soldiers, but she moves too fast to see individual faces. Their commotion is a blur she considers but otherwise avoids, focusing only on the necessary grappling points to stage an unpredictable weaving pattern.

The muted _bangs_ from gunfire are an insufficient preamble for the strained _whizz_ of bullets that soar past her, but she proves her own theory soon enough. She’s too fast for them to aim for her, let alone succeed in hitting her.

Mikasa focuses her vision on the steadfast course of the blimp, only a few more blocks from her current position. If everything else went according to plan, Armin would already be on the flying ship and Jean would be carrying Eren up in his human form soon after.

Surrounded by human civilization and the modern architecture of Marley is somehow more foreboding than forests full of mindless Titans on Paradis Island— she forces herself to move faster.

_Baaang!_

It’s a different sound than that of a gunshot; less shrill and nearly hollow, with pronounced vibrations humming through the air after it. Mikasa snaps her neck to find the source of it, but an array of firelight in the block ahead distracts her instead. Streaks of white-hot light explode like a fast-blooming flower, sparking upward and outward with bluish silver and pure violet edges. Shockwaves that are impossibly loud continue to throttle around it.

She waits for further damage, but nothing presents itself. Mikasa flies through the last of the fading sparks, their leftover heat a kiss against her sweat-stained skin.

As soon as she prepares for the next shot, it’s there. She redirects and flies over it, unable to see the fireworks as they explode behind her. The sound of the blast is forceful enough to cause tremors down her back.

Consecutive shots are fired next— all of them hollow and vibrating. Their thrumming enables her to hone in and track each of them before they explode into firelight. The shells have the same shine of bullets, but these flash bombs are significantly larger, like three of her fists stacked atop each other.

She goes slack to drop as close to the mob on the ground as reasonably possible, evading the bombs but skimming her left shoulder across a soldier’s helmet. It’s knocked clean off of his head.

Mikasa propels herself toward the next building, the blimp close in range now. Another row of several shots sounds off and she notes at once the problem in their strike pattern. It’s entirely random, an array of them sailing in several different directions all at once. She maneuvers over the nearest one, unaware that it served as a blind spot for another.

 _Thump._ It lands squarely into the center of her chest. The abrupt sound of its nearness is more alarming than the feel of its dull edge. 

Though it happens in all of a split second, survival instincts award her the perception in slow motion.

The blunt force of it knocks Mikasa back from her current arc. She glances down to see further proof of the interruption; without the pointed shape and stunning velocity of a bullet, the object in question appears harmless. It doesn’t pierce through flesh and muscle. Instead, the traumatic pressure of it seems to form a bloodless crater into her concaved chest. Her shoulders slump forward and her torso bends out from the blow, enabling the perfect view of its matte silver finish.

Her immediate response is to be furious. There’s _no chance_ that a marksman actually aimed for her as a moving target _and_ hit the square of her chest with intention. This had to be pure dumb luck.

Then she remembers the object’s intended purpose.

Fast as lightning, Mikasa reaches for the thrumming shell and tosses it off her. The heat from it scorches her fingers, but she’s released it nearly as fast as she took hold of it. At the same time, she accepts the newfound momentum, releasing the grappling hook from its original placement and shooting a hook to the building behind her instead.

But it’s too late. The shell she’s thrown is less than a meter from her when it the first shard of light escapes. Mikasa swiftly turns her cheek— the flash bomb violently explodes.

The sheer force of its amassing light takes over her entire vision. There’s nothing but the violent purity of white radiating around her. It isn’t stunning, or divine, or clean. This white is purely and only the shade of terror.

Shockwaves of sound rattle through her so hard she’s certain her ears begin to bleed.

Though what rationale remains reminds her that there’s no real fire, the burning heat from its impact flares against her with the conviction of flames. It’s only the influence of muscle memory that guides her completed arc into the building behind her.

Without the grace afforded by her attention, she slams into the brick wall at the wrong angle, banging the side of her head and bruising her shoulder. She turns into the wall, pressing one hand hard against it in a vain attempt to steady her dangling frame.

She blinks wildly, repeatedly, to no avail. A cruel kaleidoscope of shapeless neon colors joins the blinding white light, but none of them diminish the severity of its effect. Mikasa willfully widens her lids as far as she can to open them, but there’s nothing; nothing but painful and endless white.

The start of a sob emerges from nowhere and into the base of her throat, but she chokes it down. Five seconds to five minutes. That’s how long Zeke warned them flash bombs could blind them. She plans to afford herself another five seconds to regain her vision— five, four, three— but it’s too hard to count down with the vicious ringing in her ears.

There’s no more time to waste. If she stays dangling from a building as an unmoving target, then even the more incompetent marksmen will be able to hit her.

Mikasa reaches for the familiar equipment of gear on her hips and tries to recall the orientation of her fallen position and direction of the remaining buildings.

She takes aim toward what is her best guess at the opposing building’s center structure. She shoots her grappling hook toward it, praying to whichever Walls or Gods will hear her that it will stick.

Thankfully, she feels the familiar reassurance of a secure hook. Without even the chance for a relieved sigh, she propels forward.

In the absence of her eyesight, the surrounding sounds are heightened and more threatening. Every scream, hollered command, whistling of gunfire and thrum of flash bombs seems to exist as if it is out to get her.

Mikasa lands roughly but squarely, and immediately tries to gauge her next move. She strains to put together a mental imagery of the streets, pushing them into the forefront of her panicked mind.

“Oi, brat.” There’s an unusual sharpness to his otherwise unimpressed tone. The rest of his words are muddled and too far in the distance for her to discern. 

Mikasa feels an immediate wave of relief. She turns toward the direction of Levi’s voice and tries to think of what to say, how to explain.

There’s only one word that makes its way out.

“ _Captain_.”

.

.

There’s no room for error on this already unexpected and unwanted mission. After ensuring that a half-conscious Zeke was dropped securely into the blimp _and_ that the others delivered Eren next, Levi doubles back to ensure everyone is set to retreat. That’s when he sees her; Mikasa’s lithe frame propped off a wall with an almost lazy slump of her shoulders.

Levi has to blink to make sure he sees it right. The other half of Humanity’s Strongest is hanging loosely on her gear like a damned sitting duck.

“Oi, brat.” He moves to propel past her and onto the opposing side of the building. “What are you waiting for? Let’s go.”

Levi lands on the adjacent building, but he doesn’t plan to stay for longer than a second. Already he’s aiming for the next best place to grapple onto when he spares her a quick glance. Her eyes are opened wide— unnaturally so— and even before her lips part, he knows how she’ll sound. It’s rare, but that’s the reason he knows it. She’s panicked.

“ _Captain_.”

The sharp spike in her tone is oddly familiar— and hauntingly foreign. Familiar because he’s heard her protective cries for the sake of others, namely Eren. Foreign because he’s never heard that fear directed to herself.

Levi veers from his set trajectory forward and instead crosses over to her stilled placement. While propelling toward her, he tries to evaluate the source of her injury. But there’s no obvious sign of blood. There’s no visibly protruding bones. He lands to her side and speaks immediately.

“Can you move?” Levi asks. “Where are you injured?”

She shakes her head. “W-what?”

Levi blinks. She’s speaking to him and looking toward him, but not at him. Her eyes are focused over his left shoulder. The abrupt understanding slams into him. He leans in to her closest ear with a tight grimace.

This time, he shouts. “Can you move?”

“I can move, I’m not injured,” she answers, but she’s still shaking her head.

“I can’t— I can’t...” Mikasa bites onto her bottom lip. Levi watches the canine tooth puncture skin. A trickle of blood pools from it. “It was a flash bomb.”

Fuck. He assumed as much, but the confirmation offers no reassurance.

There’s no time for discussion. Levi does a fast analysis of her body’s position, the placement of his and her gear, and the last portion of distance between them and the blimp.

“Alright, hold on.”

.

.

There are all sorts of obstacles Mikasa feels confident she can overcome. Plenty of problems and painful events that have proven she’s capable of it. But this— not being able to see, the constant ringing in her ears— is unbearable. Feeling helpless is _unfuckingbearable._

The Marley soldiers must have exhausted their artillery in their randomized attack. Either that, or Levi moves them faster than it feels and her hearing is worse than she suspected. It must be less than a moment but it feels like several, waiting any second for the shredding of shrapnel or piercing puncture of a bullet.

One moment she’s soaring through air clinging to Levi’s chest and the next she’s dumped onto the hard metal floor. It’s the safety of the blimp.

She presses both hands to the ground in a silent confession of relief, but that is short-lived. Vibrations on the ground beneath her palms tell of movement she cannot see. Clashing voices and excited hollers surround her, people she knows and maybe even some whom she loves, but she cannot hear the distinguished words. The panic roars through her all over again.

Mikasa reflexively pulls herself back until she feels solid metal behind her shoulder blades.

It’s too loud, too white; she keeps _trying_ to see and keeps _trying_ to hear. The more she tries and fails, the harder her heart pounds in violent despair. Even that is just another overwhelming sensation she cannot put back into its proper place.

The sob she choked back earlier threatens to surge forward. With her last semblance of pride, or maybe a stubborn need to disallow weakness, she holds her breath instead. It’s the same reason she doesn’t search the air around her with her hands even as she feels herself itching to do so. The same reason she doesn’t know how to shout for Levi and confirm he’s still near.

Then she hears him at a distance. Levi says something; it’s plainly his voice just as plainly as she cannot understand the actual words. She hears it amidst the cacophony of chaotic noise and the ongoing siren between her ears. What he’s doing, she isn’t sure, but soon there’s the retreat of rumbling steps on the floor and no more additional noise. He must have cleared the room.

She lifts her chin and tries to look forward. A new layer of the panic sets in, one of wondering what the hell she’s supposed to do if left alone. It’s the opposite of dark, but it’s frustratingly worse. Mikasa tries again to widen her lids and will her vision to _see_. Her hands close into fists at her sides, nails puncturing into the center of her palms.

Did Levi leave the room too?

“Close your eyes.”

Mikasa jerks her head back and into the metal wall. If she can understand Levi’s words, he must be close. “What? No.”

Her teeth grind in frustration. She’s about to tell him to keep his stupid suggestions to himself.

Levi speaks first. “For fuck’s sake. Can you follow an order the first time just once?”

She doesn’t need to see to glare at or near him. The buzzing continues to shake and strangle her thoughts, making a suitable response impossible to formulate.

Or if she’s honest, it’s the fear. Because she wants to tell Levi to fuck off but can’t stand the thought of what would happen if he listened. 

“Close your eyes. Keep them closed.” The feeling of hot breath ghosting over the shell of her ear confirms her theory of his closeness. “The next time you open them, you’ll be able to see.”

That same sob tries again to clamor out, but Mikasa swallows hard. She reluctantly lets her lids flutter to a close, and while the vile panic continues to course through her blood, she feels a subtle shift into relief. Without the onslaught of white and shattered bright lights, it is the more familiar blackness that glimmers with leftover colors. At least this is familiar. At least this is what one expects to see with their eyes closed.

Mikasa tries to focus on quieting the siren dispelling the thoughts in her mind, but her eardrums must be ruptured. It persists with a stubborn force.

The desperation inside of her is wholly overwhelming and entirely unfamiliar. Desperate for relief, desperate for any way to feel grounded. Her hands still crave to search, to grab, or to hold, she isn’t certain. Instead, she opens and closes her fists. Blood trickles from her self-administered wounds. For the first time she notices the hand she used to grab the flash bomb feels burned and raw, but it doesn’t stop her.

She slams her skull into the wall and shoves her shoulders further back, too. It becomes harder to breathe, but she’s unable to discern if it’s from the actual impact of the shell or her frantic responses since then. Like the first shard of light she saw from the flash bomb, she feels herself start to break. Her lids fly open, another stringent attempt to see— ...

Violent white and violet edges. Mikasa wants to scream. Instead, she starts to shake.

“I... I still can’t see. I can’t hear.”

She has no idea if Levi is still near, but that’s not the reason she says it again. It’s already been at least three minutes—shouldn’t her vision have returned by now?

She isn’t sure if she whispers or shouts. “I can’t see. I _can’t see._ ” 

Mikasa assumes it is Levi hovering over her. He presses a hand onto her shoulder and the weight of him settles squarely against the outside of her thigh. Warmth radiates around her, an aspect of someone’s presence she isn’t used to needing.

“I know. Give it time.”

The sob finally breaks free. “ _Levi._ ”

She reaches toward the hand on her shoulder, finding Levi’s wrist and then enveloping it. Part of her understands that it’s utterly pathetic, but she can’t find it in her disoriented thoughts to care. At least if she’s holding onto him, she’ll know for certain he’s right there.

Realizing that her hand is trembling, she tightens her grip and shoves her head back harder.

“Give it time.” It’s the same sure tone, unrelenting and unaffected. “And didn’t I tell you to close your fucking eyes?”

Mikasa closes them, but continues to shake; her hands, her frame, and then her head. She’s about to spit out another complaint, prepared to force her eyes open even as she fears another failed attempt to see.

She wonders if Levi can read her thoughts through the pursing of her lips and fluttering beneath her lids. From the way her other hand lifts between them, opening and closing in frustration. He must, because he plots another way to stop her.

Levi turns his wrist out from her bruising grip. With both hands free, he takes a secure hold onto her wrists. The tremors in Mikasa’s hands are as foreign to him as they are to her.

He slides his firm hold up into the base of her palms, and then, with the excuse of stilling the tremors, he wraps his fingers over her quaking ones. Her forehead dips closer to him, a sign of relief he assumes, but her hands held by his grip try and turn. Levi can guess at their intention. She needs to have the control.

In a move more tactical than intimate, Levi guides her hands to plant them squarely onto his shoulders. Her desperate fingers immediately take a rooted hold.

Mikasa clenches her jaw, then releases. The words come out in a forced sputter. “Tell me this isn’t permanent.”

“You know it’s not permanent.”

“But— ...”

“I just told you, brat. It’s not permanent.”

“How do you know.”

“The fucking monkey told us. Five seconds to five minutes, remember.”

“Yes, but—...”

“It’s not permanent.” The edge of his lip catches onto her earlobe. 

Mikasa inhales. “Alright.”

She’s not sure when he repositioned his hold because the pressure from his touch isn’t new, but it’s the first time she notices it. His one hand is anchored onto her hipbone, and the other must be flat on the ground right beside her. She can feel his forearm taut against her waistline. It helps, to try and discern the mental imagery before her. Mikasa can only feel the weight from one of his legs on her outer thigh, so she assumes he’s taken a knee between her legs. A slight shift to one side confirms it.

Mikasa belatedly realizes that her grip over his shoulders is bruising, easily enough strength to snap bone if she wanted. She loosens her hold but doesn’t remove it. For a second, she considers chastising him for not saying anything sooner. The words don’t come to formation though.

Her thumbs rest at the neckline of his shirt. With one of them she can feel the faint tempo of his nearby pulse. She’s closer than she’s ever been allowed to touch him before. Her hands have been on his shoulders or near his neckline, shoving him during training spars and yanking his collar during what he calls _insubordinate behavior_ and she deems _spontaneous altercations_. But she’s never had the chance to touch bare skin.

Later, she’ll blame it on the disorientation from the flash bomb. Right now, she is more honest. It’s his warm breath ghosting over the sensitive space beneath her ear, the searing heat of his hand fully encasing the flesh above and beneath her hip, and the strange urge to drive his knee further into the apex of her thighs.

Mikasa forfeits her grip on his shoulders in favor of wrapping her slim fingers around the base of his neck. He is warm, and soft, and vulnerable— a new first impression that contradicts all the rest.

She’s trembling still, but for more reasons than the first one.

For several seconds she waits for Levi to withdraw, but he doesn’t. She takes it for permission.

Mikasa trails her calloused fingertips onto the lateral muscles of his neck. With one hand, she rests her palm on the rapid fire of his pulse. With the other, she rubs her thumb gently into the tendons beneath his chin. It’s the spot wild dogs and wolves lunge for, and conversely, do their best to protect.

She keeps her touch light as a feather, but still, she can feel the nodule in his throat move when he swallows. The vibrations from his upcoming words alert her even before she hears him.

“Do you want me to get Armin?”

“No.”

“Do you want me to ge—”

She doesn’t want to hear Levi say his name. “No.”

He starts to swallow again and she does her best to trace over it. Her fingertips nearest his chin move to trek upward. She can’t remember seeing stubble earlier, but he must not have shaved this morning. The start of coarse hair growth is only just pronounced.

Mikasa drags one thumb carefully beneath his bottom lip, afraid if she moves any further up, he’ll stop her.

Levi flexes his hold around her waist. She swears his touch lowers.

“Tell me it’s not permanent.” She knows her words are a whisper that he’s close enough to hear.

“Five seconds to five minutes.” It’s not the harsh reminder from earlier. It’s quieter— distracted from their nearness and her touches.

“No,” she says, forcefully. “Not my eyesight. The distance you insist on putting between us.”

“Mikasa.” He says her name with a sigh more akin to a low growl. She knows how to place it; he’s scolded her plenty of times before.

And she’s ignored him just as often.

Mikasa fans out the rest of her fingers across the length of his jaw while finally allowing her thumb to move onto his bottom lip. At first, a light caress. Then, a bolder touch. His lips are dry and chapped, but warm and so _close_.

She knows she'll only say it one more time. "Tell me it’s not permanent.”

Her unburned hand moves further up, too. Mikasa rests only the very tips of her pointer and index finger onto his top lip, waiting for him to speak. It must be an entire moment that passes before he does, his lips parting open beneath her touch.

“Open your eyes.” He sounds calm, but she knows better. His pulse had just been underneath her grasp, after all.

It’s not what she asked of him, but Mikasa is desperate to _see_ and her lids flutter open at once with the reminder. First it’s only shapes with blurred outlines, but it is _not white_ — there are colors and signs of movement between them.

A tiny gasp of relief escapes her. Mikasa blinks several times in a row, watching the indistinct shapes as they straighten out to the images she had only been able to imagine previously. Levi is still blurred but her returning sight proves that he is close, their noses almost near enough to touch. 

As Levi comes into focus, she sees her bloodied fingertips atop his parted lips. His steel gray irises are focused intently onto her. Unused to the direct contact, Mikasa feels the start of a blush. They were never alone in the dark— it only felt like it.

It must be obvious she can see. But Levi has yet to pull back; he’s still caging her, still holding her. 

She both feels and watches his mouth as he opens it to speak. His lethal focus never shifts off from her.

“It’s not permanent," he tells her.

Her vision has returned. He’s not talking about her eyesight.

Mikasa lets the words and their implication ricochet through her mind alongside the incessant ringing from the blast. 

Then Levi rocks backward onto his heels, pushing himself out from her touch and their nearness. The absence of his warm frame and firm hold is immediately jarring and she fights the urge to reach for him.

_Bang!_

They both turn toward the sound of a gunshot. It is far too close if she noticed it. Next, she hears the clamoring shouts that irrefutably belong to Connie and Jean. Her stomach instantly falls to the floor.

Levi immediately sets off in the direction of their shouts. Mikasa ignores the sensation of vertigo, stumbling onto her feet and following after him.

It will be a long time before she can forgive herself for touching Levi instead of standing beside Sasha. 

.

.


	4. V. Smell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all, thank you for the feedback so far (: Tbh I wanted to flesh this out _so_ much more and regret utilizing it as part of this prompt challenge*, so this is short and doesn't have enough context, but oh well; I wanted to wrap up this series before the end of the week as a measure of self-discipline. Grateful for you all! xo 
> 
> *Actually, if someone else has already written this, pls send me links aha

**V. Smell**

This is a strange start to an afterlife. It’s not devoid with nothingness, as Levi mostly expected, or packed with punitive suffering, as he occasionally considered. He’d been called a devil enough times not to at least wonder if the flames of Hell would one day prove it true.

Darkness permeates, but blurred shapes of figures and faces bleed through, mental conjuring of the past or insight into the present. Not likely to be visions of a future. He never spent time on the _what ifs_ and the _maybe someday_ s.

Pain is prevalent, but not prodigious; the difference between drowning as opposed to being dead.

No, this isn’t Hell. Maybe it’s the final path leading to eternal damnation though. His last chance to make amends with the Universe; to repent to the God he’d spent his lifetime ignoring.

Levi does not ask for forgiveness.

Not even when he’s near to fire and brimstone. Not when he’d make the same choices all over again.

_Besides. God, Walls, Higher Power— whatever your name is. Where were you? When were you ever there?_

It’s God who should be repenting to him.

.

.

He shifts in and out of near-consciousness. What are the real circumstances around him and what are the fictions of an opium-induced dreamscape all blend together. There’s a vague awareness of his failure, but the finer details are distorted by pain, blood loss and sedatives. Sometimes he tries to string together his thoughts, but the temptation to slip back into sleep is too persuasive.

Levi is not used to permitting temptations. He forfeits faster than his conscious self would care to admit.

There’s no telling if it’s morning or evening, the third or fifth day, when Levi starts to wake. His first impression of returning to reality is only the recognition of a familiar scent. The floral yet animalic elements from jasmine. Vetiver’s complex earthy and woody attributes. A faint trace of sweat— _hers—_ from a day’s worth of work. Without permission of consciousness, Levi stops worrying about waking and rests in the fragrance. It’s ordinarily attached to the primary temptation he does not permit.

It could be a minute, it could be an hour. Once Levi is lucid enough to think actual thoughts, he determines it’s just another dream. Through vision cut in half, he sees Mikasa Ackerman seated at his bedside. Short hair pinned behind her ear, the height of her cheekbone and scar on display. No gear, no scarf, just a simple black dress. Busied hands without blood or weaponry, but thread and needle instead.

Memory of her scent must have conjured up the complimentary imagery.

“It’s not a dream,” she says without inflection, looking up and over to him.

He didn’t realize he spoke aloud. When Levi blinks, he feels the flutter of lids on only one eye. The other is slashed and swollen, covered in bandages. Reality comes back to him slowly, but it comes.

_Fuck. That fucking monkey. I should have known. I should have—..._

Fury is the fuel that rips him fully into consciousness.

“You’re what, darning socks?” He does hear himself this time. The words are hoarse as they scratch against his throat. The gash over his mouth splits open when he enunciates. 

“No,” she says, annoyed. “This is embroidery, not domestic work.”

She tucks the needle into the white cloth and lays it down onto her lap. When her gaze returns to him, the annoyance appears faded but not absent.

“Why would you be dreaming?” Her words are blunt, cold even.

Levi becomes more aware of his surroundings. Beyond the blend of floral and woodsy scent distinct to her, the rest of his environment comes into focus. A small, undecorated room he isn’t familiar with, barely enough room for the bed he’s in and the adjacent bench Mikasa occupies. One square window left open, ushering in autumn’s crisp breeze and a chorus of nocturnal creatures. The crescent moon hangs low, not enough light on its own right. Levi can’t see the candles that must be on a table beside him, but softened light in warm hues illuminates Mikasa’s face.

In ways he tries not to understand, she always looks different to him when they’re alone.

Levi finally answers, a dismissive undertone bordering on disdain. “Because you’re not the sort to be sitting patiently and playing nurse at my bedside.”

Mikasa’s lips straighten into a thin line. A muscle jumps in her cheek before she answers him. “Yes, I am. But you’re not the sort to end up half-dead needing a nurse at their bedside.”

Levi doesn’t need the reminder. With the better sense of his surroundings comes a greater understanding of his bodily harm. It’s hard to put together an accurate anatomical sketch of what might be broken versus bruised when the entirety of his frame feels battered and burned.

“If Hange sent you to care and coddle over me, I don’t need it.” Even as he says the words with determination, the pain throbs from and through every possible angle.

Mikasa holds the white fabric tighter in her lap. “Well, I’m not here for you.”

Levi stares at her. In his injured state, there’s a limited ability to express his indolence. She knows him well enough to sense it.

Mikasa sighs, her frustration still intact. “And Hange didn’t send me. I offered. They haven’t slept more than two hours since you took a thunderspear to the face.”

She’s not looking at him, she’s looking at the bandages that seem to be wrapped around the majority of his face, but it feels probing and invasive all the same. He’s not sure the extent of the damage that she’s apparently sizing up— worse, he’s not sure he’s prepared to know.

“Don’t think it was just my face,” Levi remarks sourly, cognizant of the damage done to the entirety of his body.

He wonders if can walk. Through the burden of immense pain and opium’s incomplete ability to block it all but just some, he feels the weight of dread burying deep into his chest.

He _better_ be able to fucking walk.

Prompted by his words, Mikasa’s gaze roams slowly over his broken body before turning her attention back onto his one and only open eye. Her annoyance from earlier is more pronounced, and even before she speaks, he knows it’ll be angered.

“You’re supposed to be the only one I don’t have to worry about.”

Levi grunts. Loathe as he is to think it let alone admit it, it hurts to move his mouth and simply isn’t worth talking. He has a vague recollection of Hange trying to comfort him— or more likely, themself— while extracting shards of shrapnel buried into his face. 

Mikasa sighs again, a quiet breath that dispels the last of her agitation. As she starts to move before him, a methodical but attentive process to remove his bandages, clean the wounds, and wrap fresh gauze over the worst of his injuries, her frustrated declaration comes to mind.

_Yes, I am._

He knows that about her. That she is almost obscenely compassionate and far too selfless. He’s just spent enough time telling himself that he doesn’t. There’s a deliberate divide Levi keeps of her in his mind and letting that wall fall is another temptation he does not allow.

That the only soldier who he can confidently sit back and watch take down a titan shifter almost entirely on their own is also the same woman who brings him black tea with spearmint late in the evenings, with her soft voice, civilian clothes, and shoddy excuses to be there...— it’s too dangerous to accept. He keeps the rigid wall intact. 

Whatever medicinal cocktail Hange concocted and administered to him must be a powerful one. At some point when Mikasa is working a wet cloth over another gash in his chest— the fifth, by his count— he slips back out of consciousness without giving consent.

Her phantom presence remains with him in the dark. It can’t be the path to Hell if she’s on it.

Subtle sweat, exotic jasmine and earthy vetiver— it’s her scent that wakes him again. The cool breeze carries it to him, perhaps amused by his stubborn refusal to acknowledge what it does to him. Whatever she washes herself with, it must be a gift from Kiyomi Azumabito. None of the other Scouts or Volunteers smell like this— this _delectable_.

Injured and medicated, it’s hard to remember the purpose of preventing that line of thought.

Levi blinks heavily, struggling to lift even the one lid. She’s close, her hands and her attention preoccupied with the gash over his unopened eye. With a harrowing reluctance, he wonders how deep the cut runs, if he’ll be able to see from it again.

“Don’t,” Mikasa bites out. Her thumb situates itself into the corner of his eyelid, slick with an ointment. “Don’t try to open it.”

Recollection of a similar scenario, their roles reversed, comes to him unbidden. It’s probably the only reason he listens to her instruction.

“This will probably hurt,” she tells him, quiet and apologetic.

She traces the pad of her salve-covered thumb beneath the seam of his eyelid from one corner to the next. It stings like a fucking bitch, but he doesn’t flinch over it.

“Almost done.”

Nearly as soon as she says it, she withdraws her thumb. Mikasa wipes the remaining ointment off onto the side of her dress and then looks down to appraise him. There’s no sign of her earlier agitation, though he has a strong inclination that it was never actually anger beneath the surface.

The current circumstances, candlelight, and her closeness; all of it comes together to offer him a rare view of her. There’s no coldness, no hardness. Only features softened by concern. It's not the sort of concern one carries for their _Captain_ alone.

The _more_ she’s asked him for— in lingering touches, over late night tea, with shared lunches and exhausting sparring sessions, on that one drunken night with wine on her breath and another weakened moment blinded by a flash bomb— ...it presents itself patiently, never entirely dormant.

Even with only half of his ordinary vision, it’s the clearest he’s ever seen her.

But she is here in this moment because the boy who wrapped a scarf around her neck is now playing God and wreaking havoc, and he is here in this moment because while they may call him Humanity’s Strongest, he has failed and always does fail in the ways that matter the most.

Levi doesn’t thank her. “Thought you said you weren’t here for me.”

She doesn’t blink.

“I’m not,” Mikasa confirms bluntly, shifting onto the bench to face directly across from his torso. “I’m here for me.”

Before Levi can guess at the meaning behind her clarification, she makes it clear enough. Mikasa rearranges the blankets atop his chest for an additional buffer and then places one bent arm atop him, leaning over to rest her head onto her makeshift arrangement.

The world shifts. Now that she’s lying down on him, Levi barely has to lift his lid open to see her. She’s warm, the heat from her arm and cheek pressing through the fabric. Despite their blithe exchange, her features remain soft and caring, another contradiction to the only Mikasa he lets himself witness.

How can the soldier carrying half her bodyweight in thunderspears, flawlessly deploying them with a bone-chilling battle cry, be the same woman resting on his chest admiring him with unadulterated affection?

Levi is not able to keep the divisionary wall fortified in his current state of mind, least of all with her in such close proximity. While he fights a losing battle, she studies him from her place on his chest with intent. It's not her usual coldness or lethal determination— just relief.

Despite his attempts to protest, Levi feels himself relax beneath her unwavering attention.

Mikasa sees it, and feels it. She flashes a brief and barely-there smile.

“Does this hurt?” She asks.

It does.

“No.”

She has to know he’s lying, but Levi doesn’t think that’s why she starts to frown. Her arm not trapped beneath her head moves onto the edge of the bed. Mikasa burrows her fingertips into the muscles of his bicep, as if to assure herself he is still right there.

“You’re not invincible,” she says, a frail whisper.

It doesn’t seem like the first time she’s thought it, but it does sound like the first time she’s accepted it.

Levi is not worried about himself. Her, on the other hand—...

“ _We’re_ not invincible,” he corrects her, nearly as quiet as she’d been.

Mikasa just smiles sadly, seemingly unbothered. Death and grief have followed after her for nearly her whole life; she has no intentions of cowering to them now.

There’s a long silence that is unreasonably devoid of tension or awkwardness considering this level of intimacy should be new for them. For the first time, Levi comes to understand just how pointless his efforts have been to ignore her, ignore _this_. She was always there, is currently _here_ , and if both of them can manage to make it out of alive, will be there tomorrow, too.

Levi sighs.

“Mikasa...,” he starts, and then also ends.

There’s years of unacknowledged sentiments and unspoken statements between them. Even if he had an inkling of the right thing to say, it wouldn’t be _right_ enough.

Lavender flecks shimmer in her glass gray irises. Even with the corner of her mouth pressed against him, he can see her lips quirk into half a smile.

It must be the opium. Levi is confident he can hear her thoughts. _I love you, and because I do, I won’t tell you— not yet._

She’s always been braver than him. 

He watches her, fighting the urge to let the weight of his lid close, unwilling to let the rarity of this moment nor the reality of its imagery go.

Mikasa lifts her chin some, sliding it across his chest.

“Your arm isn’t broken,” she says more than asks. There’s the barest hint of a tilt to distinguish it as a question.

“No,” Levi confirms.

Her lids flutter to a close. “Then hold me.”

For a moment Levi can only stare at her. There’s a line drawn in the sand between them that he does not cross. She has tried more than once to toe over it, but he has always shoved her back. She’s leapt over it tonight, but there are excuses that can be made for that.

Though no universal law declares it, Levi feels the gravity of the situation all the same. If he reaches for her too, then there won’t be any turning back.

If Mikasa's bothered or concerned at his lack of reciprocity, so far it doesn’t show in the slightest. 

Levi remembers the last time she’d made an overture. While he abstained from the drunken festivities, it was the first time he had seen her overindulge. Consuming too much of the wine had brought her knocking on his bedroom door far too late in the evening. Once he opened the door, she let herself in.

_“Everyone thinks I’m obsessed with Eren— you think that, too? You’re right, I guess. I need Eren. And needing Eren hurts. Need—needing someone— I hate it. I can’t love Eren when I hate needing him.”_

_Despite an attempt to sit her down and shove a glass of water into her hands, she pushed forward and tried to reach for him. “And they’re all so focused on my needing Eren, they can’t even see how desperately I want you. You can see it, though.”_

_He did shove the glass into her hands then. “Drink the water. Then go back to your own room.”_

_“We could fuck right now and none of them would know it.”_

_“Mikasa.”_

_“I know you want to.”_

_“You’re drunk and you need to sleep it off.”_

_She was strangely coherent despite her lack of sobriety. "I haven’t had the chance to want. Surviving doesn’t leave room for want. But wanting you— it doesn’t hurt.”_

_Levi abandons the attempt to sit her down and ensure she’s hydrated. At this point he needs to get her out of his bedroom. The problem with that is it would involve touching her. The pause he takes to formulate a plan only emboldens her inebriated soliloquy._

_“It should probably hurt, but it doesn’t. Wanting you comes easy. Being with you is easy.”_

_“You aren’t going to remember any of this tomorrow. If you do, you’re going to be mortified.”_

_“No, I won’t be. I’m saying this because I’m drunk but I’m not **saying** this because I’m drunk.”_

_“Right. Seeing as those are the same things, you’ve proven my point, you nee—”_

_“Those are very different things, Levi.”_

_“Captain. It’s still Captain, even when you’re shit-faced.”_

_“Levi. It’s still Levi, even when you’re a stubborn ass.”_

_“Mikasa. Get out.”_

_“Alright,” she agreed, but didn’t move. “Do you think wanting is more important than needing?”_

_She was so god-damned beautiful when she was being honest. Levi finally reached for her, forcefully guiding her out his door and into the hall. “That’s it. Goodnight.”_

_“I think wanting is more important. In our lives, we don’t often get the chance to want.”_

_He closed the door, ignoring every screaming instinct and sparked nerve-ending telling him to open it back up and shove her against the wall or straight into his bed._

Levi takes a rattled breath. He has suffered through starving nearly to death, remembers being driven only and entirely by the need for food and satiation. No, he has no love for need.

But wanting is different. An intoxicating pull that compels and craves, seemingly outside one’s control but fundamentally comprised of choices. In a variety of paths, aware of endless alternatives, wanting is the decision to choose _just one_. Or in this case, just her.

Eventually, Levi lifts his arm— sore and weak, but not broken or immobile— and drapes it over her upper back. He settles his injured hand in-between the winged arch of her shoulder blades, a gesture that is rewarded with her grateful and peaceful sigh.

Levi feels the inevitability of a medical-induced sedation, but he has one stray thought that needs to be sorted. 

“Embroidery?”

Mikasa doesn’t open her eyes. It takes a moment before she answers, each word articulated with caution and care. “Something my mother taught me. It’s something I’m supposed to teach my daughter, too.”

He hears her unspoken sentiment. If she lives long enough to get the chance.

Despite spending the duration of his consciousness evaluating the severity of his wounds, it’s only now that he resigns himself to a conclusion. Wounded _enough._ He's wounded enough to be incapable of ensuring anyone’s safety, not even hers if she should need it. Near-dead with the hardest battle still to come, he has no reassurance to offer.

Levi doesn’t answer for several moments. When he does speak, it's a half-hearted lecture. “Well, might want to teach her how to fight first.”

He hasn’t closed his eye yet, so he sees it. The tears that slowly well but do not spill beneath her dark lashes. 

“Maybe I won’t have to,” she whispers, a quiet plea.

Maybe.

Maybe there won’t be a next generation of cadets recruited as children to be trained and sent to the frontlines.

Maybe there won’t be a future with titans, bloodshed, and the tragedies of war.

Maybe they both will live long enough to see it come to pass.

Maybe.

Though his hand is severely injured and bandaged accordingly, he glides it from the top of her back to cradle around the nape of her neck.

No, Levi has never spent time on the _what ifs_ and the _maybe someday_ s. But when given the choice to make an exception, he takes it.

Levi threads his uninjured fingers through the short length of her hair.

"Maybe."

.

. 


	5. V. Taste

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> O k a y _well_ , I never understood how authors posted things that started with notes on how they aren't actually happy with how it turned out, but here we are, here I am. I pigeon-holed myself with the T rating and attempts to keep this canon compliant despite bad timing with the manga's conclusion so near. All that to say, I finished then discarded this before I wrote "Reservations" (recent Valentine's prompt one-shot published on Ao3 in "tethered") but then said f~ck it and uploaded this anyway. For that reason, I think there are accidental similarities between the two. _oops_ Lastly, written deliberately open-ended and ambiguous in regards to Eren and the manga's recent events.
> 
> Alright, that's all. Thank you all for reading and any responses (:

**V. Taste**

Every day is different in Hizuru. Something new always presents itself; faces she doesn’t know, another custom she isn’t familiar with, endless scenery unexplored. Nearly everyone has names she tends to forget. Rituals feel more foreign with continued practice, not less. No matter how beautiful the places, none of them feel like home.

Only one thing remains the same: the dull ache in her chest with its ever-expanding pit into the base of her stomach. Six months have passed since The Rumbling, but for all intents and purposes, it never ended. Flashing images of peril run like a continuous film reel through her mind, even when Mikasa’s eyes are opened.

“Yes sir, nice to meet you, as well,” she says, but the stampede of countless colossal-sized titans is all she hears in response.

“Lady Mikasa, isn’t it? We’d be honored for you to join us at the puppet theatre’s opening performance tonight,” but once there, it is only the carnage of mass murder playing out before her, blood and broken bones from civilians— from children.

To kill every titan and explore the world. That had been the plan. The thought alone makes her grimace. She had known the world to be cruel; now she knows it to be cruelly ironic.

“You ready to go home, dear?” Mikasa hears that loud and clear, and while she is under no delusions that Paradis Island will offer any sort of relief let alone comfort, she answers resolutely after a polite pause.

“Yes, thank you, Miss Watanabe.”

“Please dear, I’ve told you, Mesuki is just fine.”

But she is still a stranger. At this point, Mikasa knows more strangers than friends.

.

.

Seeing each other nearly every single day for their entire adolescence had blinded her to the changes. His blonde locks are swept away from his forehead and cropped further above his ears, enabling a clear view of cheeks no longer round with baby fat. There is even golden stubble along the length of his jaw. Not to mention he wears the full commanding officer’s attire, emerald orb pulsing beneath his throat. It doesn’t look like a costume of Erwin. It looks like it fits.

Commander Armin Arlert is not a boy anymore. Mikasa supposes that means she is no longer a child either. That brings little comfort as she stands before him and thumps a fist atop her heart. Almost half a year has passed since she’s needed to offer a salute. It is strange to feel her heart’s predictable beat, a rhythm that has continued despite how hollow she feels.

He is still the same Armin, though. He smiles easily, azure irises sparkling with joy as he speaks, and he dismisses her salute to stand up for her instead. He’s grown another inch or two, as well.

“You’re back.” Then, a relieved slump of his shoulders. “Thank the Walls. We’ve missed you around here.”

Mikasa tries not to think about the absence of too many others in the implication of _we_. She offers a tepid smile at first, but then with warmth that is genuine, tells him she missed him, too.

They talk for hours. Armin has a thousand and one questions about Hizuru and she is glad to answer them. It _was_ a beautiful landscape with kind people and fascinating traditions. But it _was not_ the things that mattered to her more.

He only asks her how she is doing once, and when she shrugs to hide a grimace, he knows better than to ask again. 

“Well I shouldn’t keep you,” Armin tells her, though she is certain it was actually her who kept him from important work. “I know there’s someone else waiting for their turn to see you.”

There is an unusual glint of mischief in his sea blue orbs and keen smile. Mikasa doesn’t bother to lift a curious brow, only an exhausted attempt for a smile.

“It will be nice to see Jean too, but I think I’m going to turn in early. It’s been a long few days.”

Armin starts to laugh, but then abruptly chokes it back. He brings his hand up to cover a smirk, she is sure of it. Her brows do lift then.

“I – I wasn’t talking about _Jean_.”

And this is the same old Armin, too— far more observant than one had the right to be. Mikasa feels the start of a blush and makes a valiant effort to stop it. For a second she looks behind Armin, gathering her thoughts, but then she straightens her shoulders to meet his gentle gaze. There is a surprising bout of relief in no longer pretending, no longer hiding, from one of her closest friends.

“Thought he planned to go back to the Walls,” she says, the question unspoken. To open up a tea shop in Mitras had been the plan.

“Thought so too, but for some reason, he’s been stalling,” Armin answers, his smirk replaced with an earnest smile.

Mikasa feels the heat blossom over her throat. She stands, whether to distract Armin or herself, she isn’t certain. The heart she nearly forgot was still beating makes its presence known again, pounding fast and hard in the center of her chest.

“Right,” Mikasa says, searching for her bags of luggage at her feet. “Well, I’m sure there’s a lot to prepar—”

“Mikasa,” Armin interrupts patiently.

She looks up at once. “Hmm?”

But Armin just smiles at her. After a moment in the simplicity of his calm and understanding presence, Mikasa feels herself relax.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Armin says in closing, standing again and rounding the corner of his desk. “I’m— I’m really glad you’re back.”

It is rare for them to embrace, but Mikasa feels the urge like a swelling balloon about to burst in her chest. As soon as he is in arm’s reach, she takes hold of him. In the ways that Eren failed to feel like a brother, Armin never did. He doesn’t hesitate to hug her back, laughing warmly, reminding her that the ache can be soothed. That she won’t be hollow forever.

“Me too, Armin.”

Maybe she knows more strangers than friends, but those she calls friends are worth their weight in gold.

.

.

The halls are quiet and Mikasa is grateful for it. She forgot to check the time before she left Armin’s office, but the sun’s low-lying position and the emptied corridors suggest it is half-past six. If the others are busy eating in the mess hall, she can slip into her room unnoticed. She does want to see Jean, Connie, and even Annie and the children— everyone, really— but most of all she wants to see Levi and before she can do that, she needs to gather her bearings. 

Mikasa rounds the corner, but halts mid-step at the sight of him. Despite what Armin shared with her, she is still left unprepared for why Levi is propped against her bedroom door— arms folded lazily and ankles crossed— apparently waiting for her.

So much for gathering bearings. She takes a deliberate breath. 

Six months have been kind to him. There’s no trace of broken bones or near fatal wounds in his leisurely posture. The gash across his face has healed surprisingly well, the raised scar pinkish but skin-toned, a thin line stretched from forehead to chin. Both of his lids appear open as normal, and though she’s not sure if he can see out of the left one, he’s looking at her intently enough to convince her that he can.

She suddenly becomes hyperaware of her own state of appearance. The best she can say for herself is at least she showered and attempted to settle her wind-tossed hair before getting off the ship. Underneath three overstuffed duffel bags and her backpack, her strapless button-up blouse belted into matching black pants is casual at best. Levi would probably call his own rolled-up sleeves and absent blazer _casual_ too, but their opinions on attire differs drastically.

Mikasa reshuffles the bags strapped across her. It’s too late for an exchange of greetings; the typical time to share them has already passed.

She wants to ask why he’s here or what he wants, but she isn’t sure if she’s ready to hear it. _Seeing_ it is already a shock enough. While she has spent years finding reasons and making excuses to visit him at his room, he’s never once come to hers.

Levi waits patiently, but at her extended pause, he lifts a brow—it’s not curious, but challenging. A _look_ she’s seen plenty of times, prior to a sparring match or at the sight of an incoming Abnormal. Mikasa remembers her resolve at once.

She starts toward her bedroom door, and by default of his purposeful positioning, toward Levi.

“You know, the men in Hizuru always offered to take my bags,” she tells him, despite the even clack of her boot heels and natural gait suggesting that the weight of them poses no problems.

Levi remains unimpressed. “Sound like proper gentlemen. Did you let them?”

Mikasa withholds her smile, coming to a halt before him. “Once.”

Levi drops his brow and surveys the luggage strapped around her. “And how many of them did it take?”

“Three.” Half of her smile slips out then. “They didn’t ask again after that.”

“Hn.”

He doesn’t move off of the door. As fast as their humored exchange comes, it passes. Standing so near to each other, Mikasa is once again drawn to the state of his healed wounds. Despite finding him in critical condition, Hange must have not rushed through the stitches. It’s the only explanation for how the scar on his face presents so neat and uniform.

“You look—...” Mikasa starts, and then stops. She didn’t actually mean to speak aloud.

Levi interrupts regardless. “Disfigured?”

The syllables are hard but also light, and Mikasa feels a tension in her shoulders loosen to hear that he isn’t overtly bitter.

She shakes her head once. “For six months I’ve only seen you in my nightmares. It—it feels— ... Well, you’ve no idea how it feels to actually see you.”

While Mikasa can go from zero to ninety-five kilometers in a flash on ODM gear, she finds the same skill lacking with verbal remarks. What she’s shared with Levi has only been spoken through looks and touches, never words.

“ _Tch_.” Though Levi hasn’t taken his gaze off her since she rounded the corner, she watches him look her over with even more intent. “Think I have an idea.”

That earlier heat returns in a blossom over her throat, but there’s too serious a thought still crowding her mind.

Mikasa speaks quietly, prepared for the bitterness she anticipated earlier. “Can you see?”

Levi rolls one shoulder in what she takes for half a shrug. “Somewhat,” he says, still watching her intently. “Well enough.”

Mikasa forfeits her attempts to refrain from smiling, surprised at the ease and warmth in being near him again. After the aftermath of The Rumbling, they hadn’t left on bad terms, but they hadn’t left on good terms, either. There were no terms.

“Staying for tea?” She asks, readjusting the weight of her luggage, both hands clasped on the straps.

Levi nods, at last lifting himself off her door. “Alright.”

She could maneuver her bags to find her bedroom door key and open it herself, but despite her earlier dismissal on the need for gentlemen, she is not above asking for help.

Mikasa drops her chin to gesture at her waistline. “Keys are in my pocket.” 

Her boldness is rewarded with the flash of silver in his steel gray eyes. Levi doesn’t hesitate to step forward, closing what limited gap existed between them. Since she didn’t clarify which side, he slips both of his hands into her front pockets at the same time.

Mikasa does her best to remain indifferent while Levi takes his time securing a grip on the keys, his fingers curling inside the fabric of her pants at the dip beneath her pelvic bone. She knows that he doesn’t blink once while taking hold of them because she hasn’t blinked either.

Slowly, Levi lifts his hands from her pockets. Mikasa reluctantly breaks eye-contact to evaluate her keys in his hand. Where there used to be missing fingers, there are matte metal prosthetic digits instead.

Before she can ask, Levi explains. “They’re not prehensile, but they’re functional enough. They can bear weight.”

He rearranges his loose grip on the keys to show her the limitations, prosthetic fingers unable to curl tight enough to clasp, but then he transfers the keys to his other hand. Levi relieves her of one enormous duffel bag, the prosthetic fingers no less strong than flesh ones in holding the weight of it.

Mikasa admires the prosthetic, wondering for less than a moment how it came about. “Hange?”

He nods, turning toward her door to unlock it. “Apparently they came up with the idea and made some sketches. Armin and the medics were able to find the materials and figure it out from there.”

Levi pushes her door open and gestures for her to go first.

Mikasa pauses, though. Her words are soft, but deliberate. “They loved you.”

He studies his hand holding the duffel bag, expression unreadable. Then, quiet and grateful. “Yeah, I know.”

Mikasa waits for him to look up before she offers an understanding smile, then moves past him to enter the room.

Thankfully, Armin had taken the liberty of letting himself in to clean the place before she arrived. There’s no film of dust covering her furniture and no dank air, either. The window was left open to allow for the cool breeze to come through. It’s a minimalistic room, just a half-table for two, small closet, functional kitchenette, and full-sized bed all in one open space, the bathroom attached through the door opposite the little sink. Yet she likes it a great deal more than the grandiose spaces she’d spent her last six months sleeping in.

Mikasa walks in further and drops her bags at the foot of her bed.

She turns around to find that Levi has already made his way to her kitchenette. She watches as he helps himself into her cabinets, teaching himself where she keeps the kettle and tea leaves. He fills the kettle with water and sets it atop the miniature stove as if he’s done it countless times before. Which he has, she’s certain. But not here, and not for her. 

Mikasa has made their tea from that exact spot or what was essentially the same setup in his room. It is as surreal as a dream sequence to see their roles reversed. To consider what it could mean.

Once Levi reaches for the glass container of black tea, she snaps out of her reverie.

“Wait,” she interjects.

Mikasa turns back to her duffel bags. She kneels beside one of them, opening it up and gathering a rectangular-shaped object wrapped carefully in durable linen.

Levi scrutinizes it. “What is it?”

“Tea,” she tells him, as though it’s obvious.

Mikasa carries it over to him, a smile threatening to spill at the sight of Levi’s overt concern.

“Tea?” He repeats, repulsed with the block.

She stands beside Levi in the kitchenette, removing the bands over the tea brick to pull off the linen cover.

“Compressed tea,” she clarifies, placing it down on the counter. “The plants harvested for tea in Hizuru come from higher elevation on the mountains. This is still black tea, but it’s much better than what we have here. It’s the best tea I’ve ever had.”

“That’s high praise,” Levi acknowledges warily.

She does smile then. “You’ll see.”

Mikasa teaches him how the Hizuranese tea is prepared. She takes a finger-sized chip off the block, rinses it thoroughly, and then gives him ratio recommendations and steeping directions. Levi takes over once the teakettle whistles.

She settles onto a seat at the edge of her bed, elbow on her knee and chin held by her palm, content to watch him. He’s apparently seen her at work in his kitchenette enough times to know her preferences: steeped for a moment longer than recommended and served with a teaspoon and a half of honey. As she expects, Levi leaves his unsweetened.

When he starts to put her teacup onto a saucer, she intervenes. “You know I won’t use it.”

He discards the saucer onto the countertop. “Cause you’re a heathen,” he mutters, not for the first time.

She bites her lip to prevent from smiling as he carries her teacup over to her, utilizing the tips of his fingers on the top of the rim, as odd as ordinary.

Mikasa opens her mouth to make a retort, but he’s glaring mildly at her and interrupts.

“And I’m a prissy-pants, yeah I know,” he says blithely, ignoring her small laugh that follows.

Levi hands her the porcelain cup and she takes it with two hands, cradling the warmth between her palms.

It takes effort to keep the sentiment neutral— she fails regardless. “Thank you.”

He studies the cup clutched in her hands, no less aware than she is that it was a first, and then returns his steadfast gaze to hers.

“You’re welcome.” Levi fails for indifference, too.

He moves back to the kitchenette to collect his tea. “Now let’s see about your dirty mountain brick tea.”

Mikasa nearly rolls her eyes. “It’s not _dirty_. You saw how I rinsed it.”

“Hn.”

Levi doesn’t wait for it to cool down, he never does. He blows on it briefly and then takes the first sip to try it. Mikasa continues with unapologetically watching him. It's hard not to after six months apart.

“Oh,” he intones, pulling back from the teacup in slight surprise. “Oh, that is fucking good.”

She can’t help but grin. “Told you.”

Levi takes another long sip while she carries her own untouched one. He gestures with his chin toward the items left out on the counter. “Why did you bring it back as a brick?”

“Bricks, actually,” Mikasa tells him, lavender-dusted eyes pinging toward her duffel bag. “Tea is one of the most popular trade items to be exported from Hizuru. The merchants compress the tea to preserve it, shipping and selling it in larger quantities.”

Levi tracks where her vision flickered. “You brought back an entire duffel bag? It’ll take you at least a year to go through all of that.”

Mikasa opens her mouth to respond, but then closes it. In its place, a nervous breath escapes. This garners additional scrutiny from Levi, so she shakes her head once and tries again for nonchalance.

“It’s not meant for a person.”

The rest goes unspoken. _It’s meant for a new business_.

It must be understanding that pierces through him. In one second he’s appraising her with mild curiosity and then the next he’s gravely serious. She looks to his teacup instead of to him, but he places it down on the counter behind him.

Mikasa takes a fortifying breath when he isn’t watching. Instead of waiting for whatever comes next, she draws confidence by taking control and speaking first.

“You’re supposed to be in Mitras."

To ease her nerves, she wraps both hands tighter around the heat of her teacup.

Levi takes a careful step toward her. “You’re supposed to be in Hizuru.”

Mikasa just looks at him. “You knew I wouldn’t stay there.”

He takes another step, only an arm’s length away from her. “You thought I wouldn’t stay here?”

Spoken with a tilt of sarcasm and lobbed lightly to challenge her. Mikasa feels the temptation to pivot further with a joke, but she can’t. The truth in his words lances through her.

The people whom she’s loved who _wanted_ to stay have not always been able to. How could she possibly of hoped that he would stay when she’s been less certain that he wanted to?

Mikasa tries to straighten her shoulders and force the tension out from her spine, but it spurs an unintended consequence. The strain doesn’t disappear, it simply travels; by the time Mikasa realizes she’s clutching the teacup too hard, it’s too late. The porcelain shatters between her hands. 

Hot liquid splashes onto her blouse, burning straight through the fabric and scalding her stomach. It’s only fine-tuned instincts that save from burning her lap; she immediately half-jumps up, curving her torso outward and away from her thighs. That’s when she sees her hands.

“Shit,” Mikasa murmurs.

Shards of ivory porcelain are embedded into each of her palms. The sliced skin is a different sort of burn; she has to force herself not to shake them out in attempt to alleviate the stinging sensation. As if in slow motion, the cuts begin to weep blood around ivory edges.

In those three seconds, she forgot Levi’s presence. Then he steps forward and she abruptly looks up, flushed from embarrassment more than pain.

He’s too focused on the spilled tea to notice. “Did it burn you?”

“I think so,” she answers reluctantly, looking down too.

The wet fabric is still hot, clinging uncomfortably against scorched skin. Half-seated and half-perched from the bed, she watches the tea as it drips from her blouse. Blood from her hands starts to spill over next. She mumbles another incoherent profanity before making an attempt to lift the hot fabric off her abdomen.

Levi stops her, moving the final step closer and taking a careful hold of both her wrists. His light touch startles her more than his interception. Levi is many things, but gentle isn’t one of them. Mikasa swiftly decides the unfamiliarity with his new prosthetic fingers is to blame. 

He lets go of her wrists nearly as soon as he’d taken hold of them. As methodical as he would be on a battlefield, Levi moves toward the buttons on her blouse instead. Even before she can take a breath at his closeness, his steel-shaded irises flash up to meet hers. The question is clear enough.

She nods. “Go ahead.”

Even without full control of the usual fingers, he makes quirk work of her buttons and pushes the wet fabric off to her sides. She studies the streaks of red patches across her abdomen with a slight frown.

“That’s going to blister like a bitch,” Levi says, voicing aloud what she’d been thinking.

“It’s fine,” Mikasa says, resting the back of her injured hands onto the top of her knees and leaning back to sit. She cranes her neck over toward the countertop and Levi follows her line of vision, spotting the stack of clean hand towels next to the little sink.

He moves to the countertop. The initial rush of adrenaline starts to pass, replacing itself with an acute awareness of the pain across her stomach and both her hands. That, and the state of her undress. She’s been in limited clothing around Levi plenty of times before, whether from sparring in summer or with all the Scouts swimming in the sea. She tells herself this isn’t any different.

At the same time, she can’t repress the sudden gratitude that while her black balconette bra might be practical, it isn’t unflattering, either.

Levi comes back with a towel he soaked in cold sink water.

“Ready?” He asks, but already he places it over the inflamed skin.

She inhales, holding her breath as the cooler rag combats the heat on her skin. Levi looks up to her face for the first time, calm but calculative. Both his hands remain atop her stomach to hold the towel into place.

“And _that’s_ why I hold teacups the way that I do,” he says humorlessly.

Mikasa exhales. “If you’re expecting an apology, you’re still not getting one.”

The corner of his mouth twitches in amusement, but then he returns his attention to her hands. For some reason, it’s the first time she realizes just how close he’s standing, her knees nearly pressing into the top of his thighs. Blood drips from the side of her palms slowly but steadily. The droplets fall from the side of her hands, the red splatters stark against the pine hardwood floors.

“Doesn’t look too bad,” Levi remarks. “Assuming you can still move all your fingers.”

Mikasa starts to clench her hands, just enough to see that all ten fingers can curl inward. Despite her carefulness, it pulls at the injured muscles in her hand and drags the porcelain pieces in further. She grinds her teeth, as much in frustration as in pain.

“All working,” she tells him, even though he watched too. Then, quieter and somewhat in amusement, she adds. “Would’ve been ironic, though.”

“ _Tch_.” Levi removes the wet towel from her abdomen, turning it over and then placing the cooler side back onto her skin. “Humanity’s Strongest, incapacitated from the Beast Titan and a close-range thunderspear. Girl Worth a Hundred Soldier, defeated by her poor hold on a teacup.”

Mikasa huffs. “Very funny.”

The ghost of a smile on his lips indicates that he thinks so, but then he’s back to business. He arranges the towel to where it will remain propped against her stomach without his assistance. Levi takes a half step backward to acknowledge that it’s secure, and then turns his attention onto her bleeding hands. What apparition of mirth existed before vanishes.

“Want something to bite on?” Levi asks, surveying the embedded pieces.

“No.”

He lifts a disagreeing brow. “You’re not going to be able to clench your fist. You’re going to want something to anchor onto.”

“It’s a teacup, not shrapnel,” Mikasa dismisses. “Just pull them out.”

Levi is unimpressed with her stoicism and his lingering stare lets her know it. He mutters something under his breath about her willfulness, but Mikasa is too distracted to hear it. Not once he brushes his knuckles onto the inside of her knees to part her legs.

“Do me a favor,” he says, stepping between her thighs. “Don’t crush me.”

Before she can make sense of his intentions or his request, Levi takes a careful hold of her left hand. The second she sees him grip onto the edge of porcelain is the same second he must move to pull it out; the pain starts with a violent sharpness at the source, but then immediately radiates across her whole palm.

On instinct, she feels herself attempt to make fists but wills herself not to with a sharp inhale. It’s a continuation of that same instinctual response that has her tighten her knees. Levi’s legs are between them, hard musculature serving as a study weight to apply pressure around.

 _Oh._ That’s what he meant. That’s why he moved there.

“Told you,” Levi admonishes.

He discards the first bloodied shard onto the ground at their feet.

Mikasa does her best to press the back of her hands against her thighs while Levi quickly but carefully removes the rest of the shards. She makes no overt signs of protest, but continues to grind her teeth and squeeze her knees against him.

“Done.” Levi gradually releases her hand and drops the last shard. Then, with a hint of mild sarcasm. “Gonna let me go, brat?”

Mikasa blinks, assessing his amusement. Understanding comes to her a second later.

Though she’s already touching him, there’s something even more intimate about parting her thighs to release him. She does it slowly, trying not to make a fuss over it, but that quickly proves to be a flawed plan.

Levi tracks every millimeter of movement in the parting of her thighs. This time she feels the start of a blush and knows better than to try and stop it. 

Once there’s room enough for him to step back, he doesn’t. Levi looks up at her, glacial gray colliding with her darkened lilac.

It’s only the open cuts in her hands that interrupt them. With the shards removed, the blood seeps from the wounds in earnest. She regretfully turns her attention to the blood collecting over her knees.

As if removed from a trance, Levi steps out from between her legs and goes over to the countertop.

Predicting his upcoming question, Mikasa speaks first. “Medical supplies are on the top right.”

Levi promptly gathers a clean towel, antiseptic, gauze bandages, and medical tape.

Deciding the wet towel is no longer cool enough to serve its original intent, Mikasa repurposes the one at her stomach to start wiping off her bloodied hands. Each of them throb, but not nearly as much as when the shards were still in or being pulled out.

They’re both proficient in wound care. She silently hisses through the additional burn of the antiseptic, but then Levi is cradling one of her hands between both of his and pain is the least of her concern.

He is methodical as always, wrapping the gauze tight around her palm so that her fingers remain loose, but she watches as if it isn’t the thousandth time she’s seen basic first-aid be administered.

When he finishes wrapping her last hand and places it atop her knee, he forgets to let go. The weight of his palm rests on her leg.

“You should go to the infirmary,” he says, eying the irritated skin on her stomach. “They’ll have burn salve for that.”

Mikasa shakes her head once. “That’s in the cabinet, too.”

Levi lifts a brow before turning toward the cabinet. “Spill boiling hot tea on yourself often?”

“You don’t use them like I do,” Mikasa explains. “Thunderspears. Took some practice to get used to handling several for consecutive release. When the timing is off, it’s hot enough to burn.”

“No one uses like them like you do,” Levi mumbles, unwillingly impressed despite his own disregard for them.

Mikasa watches him collect the aluminum-lidded container, unable to answer as she considers what will happen next. If Levi is concerned by a similar thought, she can’t tell.

He stands before her knees again, unscrewing the metal lid and dropping it onto the bed beside her. Levi pauses with two fingers at the edge of the salve, looking at her the same way he did with her buttons in his grasp.

Mikasa doesn’t trust her voice to answer. Instead, she puts her elbows behind her and leans backward, affording him better access to her lower abdomen. It requires Levi to step forward and lean over, the ink-black hair of his fringe shifting as he looks down to her.

Once again she is surprised at his capacity to be careful— if it weren’t Levi, she’d describe it as gentle. He thumbs out a generous portion of the salve and liberally applies it on the inflamed skin, starting at the top of her stomach. He tracks the ointment with his calloused thumb lightly over the definition of her abdominal muscles, somehow even lighter when he moves lower.

It takes effort for Mikasa to remember to breathe, and to breathe normally.

Levi turns his hand partially, utilizing the last of the salve on the side of his thumb to rub it on the sliver of skin above her belted pants. The very tips of his other fingers, warm skin and cool prosthetic, trail over her hipbone as he finishes.

The ointment provides an immediate if only temporary relief. She expects Levi to withdrawal, so she savors the last second of his touch.

But he doesn’t take his hand off. Levi tracks his thumb upward instead— even though there’s no ointment left, even though it isn’t where she’s been burnt. The rest of his hand spans outward, gathering the side of her into his grip while his thumb settles beneath her lowest rib. 

Mikasa relaxes onto her elbows, but Levi is stone-faced.

“You didn’t think I would stay,” he says again, but this time, it’s quiet and serious.

She should have known he’d circle back to this, the reason for the slip of her grip. Mikasa refuses to tense up again, but she waits until she’s sure her voice will be steady before she eventually speaks. Levi doesn’t remove his hold.

“No, I didn’t,” she says, meeting his brazen gaze. “I thought I’d be shipping those tea bricks to you in Mitras.”

She added the last part to distract him, but based on the slight grimace and additional pressure of his thumb, it’s had the opposite effect.

Mikasa wets her lips and clarifies. “It’s not as though I asked if you would wait.”

Levi exhales sharply; amused or disgruntled, she isn’t certain. But then he tracks his thumb over to the left, to the right, and to the left again. Touching her because he wants to, because he can. She resists the urge to lean back further.

“Seemed fair,” Levi says evenly.

Mikasa stares at him. There’s a damnable spark of hope that bursts to life from his deliberate touch and the direction of the conversation, but she’s finished with relying on unspoken sentiments. 

“Fair?” She repeats, colder than she intended.

Levi speaks easily, though. “You waited for me.”

 _Waited._ Not _waiting_. She is so focused on making sense of his chosen verbiage that she doesn’t realize she slides further down, almost settled into the bed. Levi steps closer, his thumb edging further up to trace the horizontal length of her lower ribs.

Mikasa swallows. If he’s still here, here in the barracks, here with the military, then they’re in the same position with the same problem as before. She tries to gather her focus instead of giving into the sensation of his touch.

“You’re still my Captain.” Even as she loathes the complication, she can’t will herself to say it with actual disdain. Not when he’s protected her and her loved ones more times than she can count.

Levi lifts a brow, almost indolent. “No. Not anymore.”

Her eyes widen, but the words of surprise don’t come out.

Levi nearly smiles through his sardonic words, applying more pressure into a touch that is probably less thoughtless than it seems. “You missed my retirement party.”

That snaps her out of it. “ _You_ had a party?”

“More of a gathering,” Levi says dryly, his thumb tracking further up with languid touch. He traces beneath her sternum and hovers at the edge of fabric beneath her breast. “The others insisted.”

“You deserve a party,” Mikasa tells him forcefully, her desire to laugh forfeited in favor of complimenting him in earnest. 

Levi is serious too, watching her. He’s reached the last expanse of skin that can be covered and considered innocent. At the same time, Mikasa realizes the extent of their new circumstances.

No longer fighting for their lives.

No longer her Captain.

No longer waiting.

She abruptly sits up to reach for him, and while it slides his hand down from the more sensitive placement, he takes hold of her waist instead. Like the last puzzle piece set into alignment, both his thumbs lock into place on each of her hipbones.

Mikasa grabs a fistful of fabric on his chest, undeterred by her recent injury. “Then— then what were you doing, wasting time making _tea_ instead of—of...” she starts and then trails off, interrupted by his approach.

This time Levi parts her legs with a nudge from his knee, stepping between her thighs with ease. He drops his chin into the dip of her shoulder; she both hears and feels his dark and gravelly chuckle.

“We _like_ tea,” he reminds her, hovering over her ear.

Her fist loosens, fingers splaying out to rest against his chest. Even with the interference of fabric, she can feel the firm expanse of his pectoral muscles, the warmth of his skin. “Well, yes, but I think—” _I think we’re going to like fucking more._

She’s distracted again when his mouth lowers, a hot breath of amusement blown into the vulnerable nook of her neck. Gooseflesh erupts at once at the nearing sensation. As if needing to hold on, her other hand flies to grab onto his waist. 

“And we have plenty of time,” Levi says lowly, pressing his lips firmly onto the tender spot beneath her jaw.

Mikasa shudders. She has grown used to seeing her worst nightmares come to life, but never held the same expectation for the far less frequent dreams. Her hand drops lower, exploring the ridges over each of his abdominals, attempting to be patient.

When his mouth lifts off her skin, she’s not sure if he’s kissed or branded her, but she wants him to do it again. Her breathy exhale betrays as much.

Careful to avoid the burns, Levi promptly lifts her from the waist and drops her further back into the bed. Mikasa only has to blink before he’s atop her, molten silver staring down at her. His knees sink into the mattress beside her hips as he props himself up to avoid her stomach, but she wants him closer. Mikasa leverages her right leg to dislodge his left one out from its stilted position.

“ _Tch_ ,” he starts, but there’s no real annoyance; the opposite, really.

Now lowered onto her, Levi shifts their hips into a more purposeful alignment. He glides one hand up to rest under the curve of her breast. Mikasa plans to tug his dress shirt out from his pants, but she’s distracted at his closeness.

She reaches up to touch his face, gingerly tracing the length of his scar with her pointer finger, from the top of his forehead down to his lips. Despite the searing heat of his body’s weight on top of her, it turns her serious.

“And what about the time we lost,” she asks quietly, her touch lingering on his bottom lip.

Levi shifts lower, breathing out a hard and serious sigh. His forehead drops onto hers, but it’s not with defeat. His palm skims over her breast as he reaches for her collarbone, then throat. He holds onto the side of her neck, her pulse beating strong against his once-mangled hand.

“We’ll make up for it,” he says, resolute words spoken alongside the bridge of her nose. Then, a half-spoken apology, a harsh whisper against her lips. “I’ll make up for it.”

Mikasa breathes in, her finger slipping slowly down to his chin. There’s no longer anything to keep him at a distance. 

Levi is done waiting. He kisses her the second her finger is removed, hungrily taking hold of her entire bottom lip. Mikasa’s response is no less greedy, no less starved for him. For soldiers so used to the regiment of hardness, they’re released from it all at once. Wildly, eagerly, they claim each other’s lips as if every time is still the first time.

While Levi loosens his grasp on her throat, she tightens her hold onto the length of his jaw, refusing to separate any further. With lost time on his thoughts, Levi cradles the base of her neck and dips her head back; deliberate in deepening their kiss, to have more of her.

Mikasa responds, leaving her lips parted for him the next time she releases his lips. Levi’s tongue doesn’t stall in accepting her invitation.

It’s a brief and fleeting series of thoughts, starting with the notion that Levi tastes like tea. The tea she could have been drinking alone in Hizuru. The tea he could have been selling without her in Mitras. Instead, Levi tastes like tea he’s made for the both of them after waiting half a year for her to return.

She’s too consumed by his hand threading into the hair at her scalp, of the coiling pressure between her pulsating thighs, to think past a first impression. But the urgency from his grasp, the dedicated exploration of his tongue, the echo of his promise— _"I'll make up for it."—_ convinces her she'll have other opportunities.

.

.

.

_fin_

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading (: 
> 
> Find me [on tumblr](https://helena-thessaloniki.tumblr.com/), too. xo


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